WRideout
12-27-2011, 08:42 AM
It had been one of those terrible deer season opening days. Warm and a light drizzling rain. If I covered up with rain gear, I got just as wet sweating inside it. I heard and saw many other hunters where I was at State Game Land 95, north of Butler PA, but heard few shots. After a boring morning of stump-sitting, I finally called it quits and headed back to the parking lot.
I leaned my rifle against a tree, opened up my lunch, and chatted with the other hunters coming out of the woods. No one was successful that morning. I finally decided that it would be prudent to try again another day when the weather cooperated. I got in my car and headed home. I was almost to my driveway, when I realized with a shock that my rifle, given to my be my stepfather, was not in its customary place on the back seat. With my heart racing, I stepped inside only long enough to yell to my wife, “I’ll be back in an hour.”
I hunched over the steering wheel driving as if I were in a road race. As a former military man, I was deeply ashamed and embarrassed; my old drill sergeant surely would have flayed me for making such a mistake as leaving my weapon unattended. I thought black thoughts about the evil person who would take the rifle with no remorse. I was sure I would never see it again.
I finally arrived back at the parking lot to be confronted with the sight of five men standing in a circle, looking at my rifle, all with puzzled expressions on their faces. I approached one of them, the driver of a vanload of Amish hunters from Volant. After I identified myself as the owner, he said, “We didn’t know how to find who it belonged to so we thought about taking it to the store in Annandale, where everybody goes eventually.” He was glad that I had come to retrieve it. I drove home again in a much happier frame of mind, and oiled up my rifle before putting it away.
Two years later, I was at Game Land 95 again, perched on a stump, in perfect hunting weather. Cool but not too cold, and with lots of other hunters out pushing the deer. I picked a spot overlooking a small valley and waited. Shots rang out all around.
In the distance I heard the sound of a man walking, just out of sight. Soon I picked out the familiar orange from the background, and in a moment caught sight of a most impressive figure. A tall bearded Amish man in the usual blue denim uniform came walking toward me. He was adorned with a blaze orange vest, and wore a wide-brimmed hat with orange tape wrapped around the crown. He carried an old but well-cared-for Savage 99. As he got closer, I said “Nice rifle.” He stopped and decided to chat a bit. “I’ve had it since I was twenty; my father gave it to me. Now I’m thirty-two, so I guess that makes it twenty-two years old.”
We continued our conversation, in hushed tones, like one does in the deer woods. We talked about previous successful hunts, and what his buddies were doing. He was a driver, he said, trying to push deer for his party. I told him that I had seen a tagged deer in the bed of a pickup, back in the parking lot, along with unsecured gun cases. “You know what,” he said, “A couple of years ago I found a rifle in that parking lot leaning up against a tree.” After that sentence had sunk I held up my weapon and asked, “Does this look familiar?” He nodded in agreement. I thanked him for his Christian honesty, and we continued to talk lightly about other things. We introduced ourselves. He said his name was Seth, and he ran a furniture business up in Volant. Shortly after that, he continued walking in the direction of his buddies in the hunting party.
I suppose it is just coincidence that we met, since we both hunted the same woods, regularly; however that does not seem to be a completely satisfactory answer. So many things had to have happened in exactly the right order, and at the right time. If not for our paths coinciding, and having the conversation we did, I would not have known that he was the Samaritan who saved my keepsake. I never did bag a deer that day, but it is one of the more memorable experiences I have had in the woods. I finally got to thank in person the man who found my rifle, and made sure it was cared for.
Wayne
I leaned my rifle against a tree, opened up my lunch, and chatted with the other hunters coming out of the woods. No one was successful that morning. I finally decided that it would be prudent to try again another day when the weather cooperated. I got in my car and headed home. I was almost to my driveway, when I realized with a shock that my rifle, given to my be my stepfather, was not in its customary place on the back seat. With my heart racing, I stepped inside only long enough to yell to my wife, “I’ll be back in an hour.”
I hunched over the steering wheel driving as if I were in a road race. As a former military man, I was deeply ashamed and embarrassed; my old drill sergeant surely would have flayed me for making such a mistake as leaving my weapon unattended. I thought black thoughts about the evil person who would take the rifle with no remorse. I was sure I would never see it again.
I finally arrived back at the parking lot to be confronted with the sight of five men standing in a circle, looking at my rifle, all with puzzled expressions on their faces. I approached one of them, the driver of a vanload of Amish hunters from Volant. After I identified myself as the owner, he said, “We didn’t know how to find who it belonged to so we thought about taking it to the store in Annandale, where everybody goes eventually.” He was glad that I had come to retrieve it. I drove home again in a much happier frame of mind, and oiled up my rifle before putting it away.
Two years later, I was at Game Land 95 again, perched on a stump, in perfect hunting weather. Cool but not too cold, and with lots of other hunters out pushing the deer. I picked a spot overlooking a small valley and waited. Shots rang out all around.
In the distance I heard the sound of a man walking, just out of sight. Soon I picked out the familiar orange from the background, and in a moment caught sight of a most impressive figure. A tall bearded Amish man in the usual blue denim uniform came walking toward me. He was adorned with a blaze orange vest, and wore a wide-brimmed hat with orange tape wrapped around the crown. He carried an old but well-cared-for Savage 99. As he got closer, I said “Nice rifle.” He stopped and decided to chat a bit. “I’ve had it since I was twenty; my father gave it to me. Now I’m thirty-two, so I guess that makes it twenty-two years old.”
We continued our conversation, in hushed tones, like one does in the deer woods. We talked about previous successful hunts, and what his buddies were doing. He was a driver, he said, trying to push deer for his party. I told him that I had seen a tagged deer in the bed of a pickup, back in the parking lot, along with unsecured gun cases. “You know what,” he said, “A couple of years ago I found a rifle in that parking lot leaning up against a tree.” After that sentence had sunk I held up my weapon and asked, “Does this look familiar?” He nodded in agreement. I thanked him for his Christian honesty, and we continued to talk lightly about other things. We introduced ourselves. He said his name was Seth, and he ran a furniture business up in Volant. Shortly after that, he continued walking in the direction of his buddies in the hunting party.
I suppose it is just coincidence that we met, since we both hunted the same woods, regularly; however that does not seem to be a completely satisfactory answer. So many things had to have happened in exactly the right order, and at the right time. If not for our paths coinciding, and having the conversation we did, I would not have known that he was the Samaritan who saved my keepsake. I never did bag a deer that day, but it is one of the more memorable experiences I have had in the woods. I finally got to thank in person the man who found my rifle, and made sure it was cared for.
Wayne